Officers
President – Salma Abdulla
Vice President – Karen G. Williams
Secretary/Treasurer – Bob Agoglia
Biographies
Salma Abdulla, CFA, CFP®, is a stock portfolio manager at Parsonex Financial Services with over 20 years of experience. She has attended numerous in-person and online retreats at IMS and actively participates in Buddhist studies classes. A member of the New York Insight community, she served on the IMS board from November 2016 to July 2023, and returned in July 2024.
Bob Agoglia has been attending IMS retreats for more than 40 years and served as IMS’s Executive Director from 2006-2013. His experience included over 25 years in leadership positions in the public and private non-profit sectors. For the twelve years prior to beginning his tenure at IMS, he was a founding principal of Fazzi Associates, Inc., a national consulting and research firm that serves home health, hospice and human service organizations.
Guy Armstrong has practiced insight meditation for over 40 years, including training as a Buddhist monk in Thailand with Ajahn Buddhadasa. He began teaching in 1984 and has led retreats worldwide. He is an IMS guiding teacher and author of Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators.
Devin Berry is an IMS guiding teacher. A meditator since 1999, his practice is primarily informed by the metta and vipassana teachings of the Insight Meditation tradition. He has undertaken many periods of silent long-term retreat practice. Devin is committed to the personal and collective liberation of marginalized communities knowing that through the integration of reflection and insight, clarity and wisdom give rise to wise action. Devin is the father of two children.
Inger Forland became IMS’s Executive Director in June 2017, after serving at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health as Vice President, Marketing and Communications. Prior to that, she had almost 20 years in management, primarily in the publishing industry. Inger has been a dedicated meditator and a student of spiritual philosophy and practice for more than three decades, and is deeply committed to our diversity work.
Gyano Gibson has practiced across a variety of spiritual traditions since 1974. In 1997, she arrived at IMS from Australia and immediately knew she had found her spiritual home. She then served on staff for almost 22 years until her retirement in 2019, helping to direct the organization’s fundraising and communications activities, and to create, under the Guiding Teachers’ direction, the annual retreat schedules. After marrying in 2020, her immediate family grew from four to 23, including 12 beloved grandchildren.
Joseph Goldstein has taught Buddhist meditation worldwide since 1974. A co-founder and guiding teacher of IMS, he also helped envision and establish BCBS and IMS’s Forest Refuge center. His books include Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, One Dharma, Insight Meditation and others.
Ed Hong is a finance and technology professional with over 20 years of industry experience. He is currently overseeing software and data programs for Evercore’s M&A Advisory business as a Managing Director. Ed first sat at IMS in 2007 and joined the Board in 2011, serving terms as Secretary-Treasurer and then President, until 2018. In 2023, Ed returned to the Board, where he serves on the Finance Committee.
Chris Logue has been meditating and attending IMS retreats since 2010. In his professional life, Chris has worked as an attorney in the nonprofit sector for over a decade, including working in the domestic violence and education sectors. Chris is currently at the law firm Hurwit & Associates, which exclusively represents nonprofits. Chris is a proud father to two young girls and innumerable houseplants.
Winnie Nazarko is an IMS guiding teacher. She attended her first meditation retreat in 1981, after a co-worker convinced her that it would be interesting. And it was interesting, just not in the way she expected. After that long weekend with Stephen and Andrea Levine, she knew she had touched something deeply truthful, although she couldn’t quite describe it. It did, however, seem to do with transparency of being, equanimity, and lack of fear.(Read more.)
Zeenat Potia teaches meditation in Buddhist and secular spaces. She has practiced at IMS for over 15 years. Zeenat incorporates her life experience—as a South Asian immigrant, a mother, and a strategic communications professional in higher education, non-profit, and publishing for over 20 years—into her teaching. Her current work integrates mindfulness, 12-step recovery, and Internal Family Systems as a way to heal trauma. She also teaches at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, where she served on the board from 2012-2019.
Sharon Salzberg,is a meditation pioneer, world-renowned teacher, and New York Times bestselling author. She is one of the first to bring mindfulness and lovingkindness meditation to mainstream American culture over 45 years ago, inspiring generations of meditation teachers and wellness influencers. Sharon is co-founder of The Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA, and the author of twelve books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, now in its second edition, and her seminal work, Lovingkindness. Her forthcoming release, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom, is set for release in April of 2023 from Flatiron Books. Her podcast, The Metta Hour, has amassed six million downloads and features interviews with thought leaders from the mindfulness movement and beyond. www.sharonsalzberg.com
DaRa Williams has practiced vipassana meditation for 25 years and serves as an IMS guiding teacher. She is also a certified coordinating trainer for Aboriginal Focusing Oriented Complex Trauma Therapy and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in the New York City area. “It is my experience that meditation and the Dharma are ideal for transforming suffering. Awareness, wisdom and a compassionate heart become the vehicle for transformation, connection and freedom.”
Karen G. Williams, Ph.D., is on the teacher’s council at New York Insight and a 2017 graduate of Spirit Rock Community Dharma Leader Training Program. She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Guttman Community College. Her research examines strategies implemented inside correctional facilities to help incarcerated people return home to their communities. She has attended people of color retreats as well as other retreats at IMS since 2008. When she is not teaching and conducting research she can be found talking about roller derby, watching movies or knitting.
Julia Wu is a digital marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in the health & fitness space. She currently works as a marketing leader at Happier (formerly Ten Percent Happier). Julia sat her first meditation retreat IMS in 2020.
